TOP TEN WORST FILMS OF 2014

Its been a helluva year for films this year and I have decided to cap it off with my highlights for all the right and wrong reasons this year. I would like to also make it clear that this is my list and it does not reflect the opinions of Axia ASD ltd or the views of the people that regularly read this blog it’s just my personal picks fell free to disagree with me and if you liked a film on this list that’s great I fully accept that and it’s not my place to take that enjoyment from you I’m just stating why I Hate/love these films. Also these aren’t going to be in depth looks at each film there just going to be quick summaries of what I thought of the film and why it made the list. Some of the films that made both lists I did review however

Now before we get too deep into this I must admit these list are going to be a bit incomplete seeing as how I didn’t see every film that came out this year though with reviewing 10 and seeing close to at least 30 movies outside of review (I lost count) I think I made a good stab at it. I particularly missed a lot of films that came out in the latter portion of the year as I can only do so many cinema trips and not at lot of them are out on DVD yet, for example I haven’t seen the final Hobbit movie or the awards contenders like Mr Turner. I did, however, get a large amount of movies under my belt this year, even though I only managed to review 10.

Now obviously with my new schedule that is going to increase next year, though I would say I think I can make a fair assessment of what have been some of the highlights of the year. That being said, I also did not deliberately go out to check out every movie that I heard was awful, for example I haven’t seen the Michael Bay film Ouija which is already on a lot of top ten worst films of 2014 list or the myriad of supposed awful comedies that came out in 2014 like Sex Tape and Dumb and Dumber To, so don’t expect to see that one on this page. I should also state, that in order for a film to make my list it must receive its initial UK release in 2014 at either cinema or on DVD, film festival releases do not count as they are not released to the general paying audience, you need to be able to walk into a cinema or pick up a DVD copy by random chance. If those films get released on DVD this year they will count, but aside from that you will have to wait until next years list, for example Giovanni’s Island which did come out at several film festivals this year won’t count for my list as it’s gonna receive its DVD release later this month and believe me I will get round to reviewing that film.

This also means that films that came out in 2013 but got most of their press from their DVD releases in 2014 will not count. I don’t care if American Hustle got a lot of its popularity in the UK in 2014, it was released in 2013 so it’s not eligible for this list. That being said while I think of this as one of the few years where I saw more good films than bad films, though a lot of these bad films were really awful. None of which have entered my worst films of all times list, which means that there must be a victory in some sense, but with all ten of the movies which have made this list, I never want to see any of them again. They were all just excruciating at the time or have gotten worse the more I think about them. There are a few films that didn’t quite make my list, but I think they need to take some pain. Here’s a quick run down of some dishonourable mentions, these films were bad, but they didn’t quite make my list.

Rio 2, I Frankenstein, Pompeii, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, The Purge Anarchy, Grace of Monaco, Tarzan 3D and just barely escaping my list were Maleficent and Sharknado 2, both of which any other year could easily have made the list, the former for being a really stupid boringly waste of the source materialand the latter because the joke is not funny anymore stop making these B movies which are designed for taking money from peoples wallets out of a joke, you are singlehandedly promoting a bad image of sharks! Stop it immediately! But if I put that film on this list it would have been rewarding them even further. Now here is the actual list:

10: Need for Speed.

Yep its another awful live action adaptation of a video game. What a surprise. I actually thought this film was going to be genuinely good when I saw Aaron Paul’s interview on Top Gear. He promoted this film like it was going to be like one of the classic car films such as Bullet and Vanishing Point, but what it is, is an un-inspired waste of time. For a film called Need for Speed, this films pacing is slow as hell. Aaron Paul and Dominic Cooper are completely wasted and while it’s admirable that the film is using actual cars rather than CGI, it makes the destruction scenes of very expensive (near £200,000) cars seem even more wasteful and given the way the economy is going at the minute that may not be the best way to go, as your audience have paid a lot of money at the cinema to see this. Couple that with a story that tries to combine the plot of too many games in a short space of time and you have pure pain. Don’t see this one, it’s a waste of time.

9: Lucy

Yes, I think half of you knew this one was coming. I’m surprised this film has such a large fan base because I really don’t get it. I have heard that there are a couple of other films that are stupider than this one that came out this year, but I didn’t see them so I am stuck with this one. I said in my review, that this film gets worse the more you think about it, and it really has gotten that way. I’m now starting to think I was too kind in my review to it. Scarlett Johannson and Morgan Freeman are talents that are completely wasted. The villains’s plot is stupid and makes no sense and there was no reason for this film to be in IMAX, it was a complete waste of money and the only reason it isn’t higher on this list is because it was mercifully short. If you enjoy it, good on you, you see something that I don’t. But I couldn’t stand this!

8: Robocop (2014)

This was such a crushing disappointment. I really wanted the Robocop re-make to be really good it makes sense to remake this film with all the changes in technology in our society that lead to ideas that could easily be implemented into new Robocop movies, but what is turned out to be was a completely under-developed movie. It makes tons of references that this is a crime riddled society that really needs something like Robocop to save it, but we’re never ever seeing it. The original made great satire that is still relevant to this day, but this one is so completely un-subtle to get out it’s drone warfare political message that was done a lot better in Captain America, the Winter Soldier. I really hated this one. Joel Kidderman really should be up for a raspberry for worst actor, he plays Alex Murphy as a boring lifeless drone before he ever becomes Robocop and Michael Keaton, you may have picked one bad film after another this year, but thank god you have got Birdman out because if you didn’t this film and Need for Speed probably would have sunk your career.

7: Legend of Hercules

Yes, anyone who paid attention to any of the films that came out in January knew this film was coming. It has been widely publicised as being awful and they are not wrong, it was just a bore to sit through. Yes some of the action sequences were pretty good, but its so clear that they are ripping off 300 that you almost want to get Zack Snyder on the phone to say please sue someone! If Kellan Lutz is not nominated for worst actor at the raspberry’s it would be a real travesty, because he is just awful in this role. He gives the worst performance I have seen all year, he’s only a couple of steps above Tommy Wiseau in The Room for crying out loud. If you couple that with the pretentious camera work and awful story, then you will realise you have wasted a good chunk of your day on this crap. I can’t believe there have been two awful Hercules movies in one year.

6: Legends of Oz, The Return of Dorothy

Yep, two years in a row A Wizard of Oz property has ended up on my Top Ten Worst Films of the year list. I don’t understand how film workers are having so much trouble with what is essentially a very simple source material , but clearly it’s more difficult than I imagined because this film seems broken in every single way. The story is not engaging. The characters are poorly acted and the animation is horrible. It’s one of the worst animated films I have seen that was released in cinemas all year and I didn’t even see it in the cinema. If anyone paid to see this in a cinema I hope the frame rate was at least decent because I was having trouble on my laptop screen, god knows what it would have been like in the cinema. This clearly was a direct to DVD movie that never should have seen the light of day and I just don’t care to see any future movies with the Oz brand. Hopefully Wicked is going to be a lot better when someone gets round to producing it, but for now we are stuck with this and Oz The Great and Powerful.

5: Devil’s Due

Yes, it wouldn’t be a my personal worst films of the year list if there wasn’t a found footage movie in the mix (and by the way I didn’t see Into the storm or As Above So Below but they probably would have been my pick for the worst found footage film had I seen them from what I’ve read and seen) . It’s been a really dire year for horror films this year and while I may not have seen The Babadook which got good reviews this year or Ouija which got some of the worst reviews I saw all year, I did see Devil’s Due and it’s an experience I never want to repeat! This is one of the most clumsily and un-original found footage films I have seen in a long time, considering how un-original found footage films are already, that’s saying a lot! This is clearly a ‘Rosemary Baby’ rip off, except its poorly acted, poorly shot and has absolutely no suspense whatsoever. If I was meant to believe this was genuinely happening the poor effects took me out of it completely and almost had me in hysterics. For crying out loud stop making found footage movies and bringing them out in January. I have had enough of people making a ton of money off this with no new release schedules to challenge them. It’s a practice just to make a quick buck and its getting annoying. Go away!

4: Kite

This was the most boring movie I saw all year. I got this on DVD as soon as it came out and I was so bored by the middle point that I was actually surfing the internet on my IPad and was only half watching the film. It’s a by the numbers live action remake of the anime, but because of the more mature content of the animated version this film can’t go all out because of it’s 15 rating. It’s just a bore, none of the actors are giving a decent performance, even Samuel L Jackson looks like he’s not having any fun. Replacing the location from Japan to South Africa doesn’t improve it in any way. Its ending is way too contradictory to the anime and whether you like the anime or not you have to admit it had a better ending that left a much more ambiguous and less simple answer than this one did. I don’t even get the choice of Anime to adapt, why Kite? it was so ridiculously over the top and over violent that it would have been impossible to faithfully adapt to live action from the start. Surly there are a lot better anime that deserve a big screen adaptation. That being said If western studios want to develop more live action films based on anime they are going to have to put more care and attention into to it than they did this one, because between the poor action sequences and the awful dialogue I just wanted to stop watching!

3: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Once again see my review that I made back in October if you want a more in depth look into why I hate this movie, but this was heartbreaking. Michael Bay took characters and settings that I really enjoyed and he completely screwed them to within an inch of their lives. There was no fun in watching this. Terrible special effects! Awful acting! A plot line so full of plot holes and retrospective continuity changes that it took everything within me not to yell at the screen “why are you doing this”! The 3D conversion is in no way beneficial and it did the worst thing that a movie adaptation can do, it made me question whether the source material it was based on was ever that good in the first place. Well done Michael Bay.

2: Planes: Fire and Rescue

This movie obviously thinks kids are stupid because there is no other reason for this film to exist. Remember when pixar films used to take years in development? This one came out less than a year after the original Planes, and it really shows. I haven’t seen such a carbon copy sequel since Hangover Part 2. They have just replaced the word Racing Plane for Fire Fighter, the animation has somehow managed to get worse and the fact that this was left in cinemas for as long as it was, meant that more parents took kids to see this than decent children’s movies that came out this year (seriously Despicable Me 2 and the Croods were much better than this). kids deserve a better class of movie than this. The cars films were dreadful, Planes was even worse. I haven’t even seen the boat spin-off but I can assume that is awful as well and if there are any plans to make more of them in the future then expect them to turn up on future lists as these films have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

1 Transformers: Age of Extinction

Yeah, yeah I know this is a cop out and I know lots of people like this movie, but this film offends me in its creation. It’s against everything that I think is good about cinema. Once again Michael Bay pushes all the plot and character so the special effects can be the star of the show and I think in a lot of levels its even worse here than all the previous Transformers movies. This one tops the list though because of all the films that have made this list, I at least stuck through to the end with all of them. This one took me two goes, I gave up an hour and a half into watching it first time because I couldn’t stand doing it for another hour and I was on a plane with literally nothing else to do. This film is too long! Too poorly written! Too poorly shot! Awfully acted! Ruins Mark Wahlberg’s career all over again! and the characters were so annoying. Just to bring up a point Mr Bay, just because you point out what you are doing is painful and stupid with a few in jokes doesn’t make it any less painful and stupid (yes I know I am quoting The Nostalgia Critic, but I don’t have any other better way of putting it). If you enjoyed this movie, more power to you but I thought I was done with these after the third film, but now I got to sit through another two more films. Great, just great. There was no film that was worse for me this year than this one and I hope to never ever see it again!

Those were my Worst Movies of 2014. If you enjoyed these movies, that’s fair enough I don’t have any right to take away your enjoyment of them I am just stating why I think they are awful. As I said if a film didn’t turn up on this list it either didn’t do enough to annoy me to make this list, or I didn’t see it.

If you have a film that you think should be on this list please leave some comments, I would to see what films were awful for you this year and I would even love to see your own Top Ten Lists in the comments section. Remember, you don’t need an account or live in a specific location to leave a comment and we will accept all opinions and you can be as brief or as long as you want. Also, just a reminder we are accepting user content and if you want to send your own review send it in a word document to calvin@axia-asd.co.uk. For more details on that go to my Big Eyes review, which I posted last week.

I can’t end the first year of the axia film society on a negative so check out my best films of the year list which is on line now where you will also find out what the first review of 2015 will be.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“BIG EYES”

For my final review of 2014 I am reviewing Tim Burton’s latest film and probably what will potentially become the most under rated film of the year! I have been very interested in this film for quite some time, ever since Nostalgia Critic reviewed the previous Tim Burton film, Alice in Wonderland. In the review he mentioned his next film was going to be Big Eyes and it had a very interesting premise I was keen on, especially considering it was like nothing that he had previously made and potentially could have been a radical turn.

I am not a person that loves or hates Tim Burton, I actually think his is very hit or miss, but when he is a hit he is one of the best directors around. Films like Batman, Edward Scissor Hands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Big Fish are good examples of this, however his flops whilst potentially bad are never wholly horrible, see examples of films like Mars Attacks which I actually kind of enjoy on a lot of levels( and no I’m not copying Film Brain this is genuinely my opinion). In my opinion he has only had three disastrous films, namely Alice in Wonderland, Planet of the Apes and his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory re-makes, all of which were almost un-bearable to sit through, particularly Alice! (Yes I know this film has a fan base but I really can’t bring myself to lower my level of hatred for this film In order to not offend someone). So with this film’s change in style I also had to take in the fact that this film was not receiving a large amount of promotion. Of all the four films that have come out on Boxing Day, this film has received very few adverts. Just before I went to see the film, I had literally seen two advertisements for it, one being an advert I randomly saw on TV and the other on the back of The Big Issue. This film is seriously being under-promoted. Not helping matters is the fact that there are very few screenings of this film. In fact I couldn’t find a single screening at any Odeon Cinema. I only managed to see one because luckily another cinema chain in Peterborough, which is where I was spending the Christmas holidays happened to be showing it. This is really surprising to me especially with a name like Tim Burton being attached to the film, which also made me wonder, was this film being hidden for a reason, or is it another example of a more populous film getting the better advertising.

The plot itself follows the true life story of Margaret Keane, an aspiring artist who after marrying a man named Walter, had her art shown in Galleries, but under her new husbands name and the trials and tribulations she went through, having had her work stolen. Now, much like my previously reviewed ‘Pride’ this film can only take so many liberties in writing its plot, because of its true life events and I will be considerate in the film’s writing in that sense, however, this film’s plots biggest weakness is its first half, which was paced really badly. We are not initially given time to let things sink in with these characters, and I was feeling during the first half that it was moving too fast, however where this film resurrects itself is in its second half where it is much more improved. Its second half dives into several amazing themes, such as ‘what it means to be an artist’, ‘the society for women in the fifties onwards’ and even in the sense of ‘mental abuse’ which I think is something that has been under-used in cinema now, it seems much more leaning towards physical abuse. This is a film where as far as abuse goes, barely a punch was thrown. Seriously, my recollection of the film based on my first viewing was, that whilst there were threats of violence, there was no physicality actually involved and I think that actually helps the film tell its story better because it lets the abuse sink in better. You really feel for this woman in the second half of the film. She has everything taken from her, these aren’t just pictures on a canvas, they are her life’s work and her soul and this man who is conning her doesn’t understand this, and he doesn’t understand the impact!

The film tries to go into other themes with other characters, but I don’t think they work as well, especially the critic character, which feels like a really mean dig from Burton towards his critics and it doesn’t serve much purpose except to set up a later scene. It’s not too bad per se, it just feels very unnecessary.

The last time that Burton did a film based on a true life story was ‘Ed Wood’ and that should be the obvious one to compare this film to, especially considering the writing team behind that film is the same writing team for this film, however this comparison would not really hold up as Ed Wood was a lot more hyper stylised than this film and definitely felt more like a Tim Burton production. This film doesn’t feel very Burton, except at certain moments and that’s not a bad thing. I like the fact that Burton is spreading his variety with this film, especially seeing as how ‘samey’ some of his previous films have been, see films like Dark Shadows and Batman Returns for example. However, Burton does give us some of his usual tropes, like his fondness for the strange, almost macabre in certain scenes and his gravity towards villains, particularly considering a large portion of this film focuses more on the conman than the artist and I really get a sense that Burton’s fascination with this film was his fascination with the art itself and that really shines through in his direction. So whilst this film may be different to his normal work, it definitely has some of his stamps and I think he has outdone himself just by doing something that may not be recognisable, but is enjoyably different.

Overall, whilst the first half of this film may have not been as entertaining as I would have liked, the second half of this film saves its plot. I definitely enjoyed this film’s plot, it was very, very engaging and I am looking forward to a re-watch when it comes out, to see if I can spot anything I may have missed the first time, particularly in some of the more interesting sequences of the film such as the court room scene at the end, which I dare not spoil!

When it comes to the cast, Tim Burton hired some amazing actors, especially for the two main roles, however whilst the supporting role may get decent actors, I don’t think they are given enough time for us to build upon them, although that being said having done that it may have taken away from the major story that we are meant to be focusing on. Amy Adams does a brilliant Margaret Keane, having come after her previously Oscar nominated film American Hustle. She really plays a woman trodden down by societal norms and an abusive relationship very brilliantly, because it doesn’t define her, she is not a wilting flower, she can stand up for herself but she doesn’t feel completely confident enough to stand up for herself and thus it gives her husband more power, which is definitely to the credit Amy Adams acting.

One of the stand out cast members on this film is Christoph Waltz, playing Margaret’s husband Walter Keane and as a result the man who took credit for Margaret’s Big Eyes pictures and he is a brilliant actor especially for this sort of role. It’s great to see him still on form considering the last film I saw him in was the brilliant Django Unchained. Burton knows how to direct this man to be the slimiest despicable human being possible, which is very necessary considering we are focusing on him for a large portion of the film. Waltz already has Oscars to his name but I think he may potentially be getting another one from this, though I am doubtful considering the competition he will be up against looks like it will be Michael Keaton and Benedict Cumberbatch. It doesn’t detract, however from the fact that he is really selling himself as an actor I can completely get behind. I am definitely checking out a lot more films on his name alone.

The rest of the cast while creating their roles they don’t get a lot of time to show it. I like Krysten Ritter as DeeAne, but she is basically a glorified cameo and Jason Schwartzman plays a gallery owner who feels very much like he is out of one of Burtons previous films like Edward Scissor hands or Beetlejuice, but again he is very useless especially considering I expected he was going to turn up later in the film for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who sees this film, but obviously I don’t want to mention. As I don’t want to spoil these plots. If you are going to have role as small as art critic John Canaday, then don’t hire a great actor like Terence Stamp for a role that really under-does his talent. He brings a lot to this role and is very good but he’s so pointless, not at pointless as Jason Schwartzman’s Ruben, but still not really that necessary. Having said that though, I am glad that Terence Stamp was at least on good form, and probably may have affected a lot of people’s views about not only the art, but also life in general. I definitely saw a lot of myself as an amateur critic in him. There are other cast members I could easily talk about, but I don’t feel their roles were significant enough to really go too far in to it, but make no mistake they will grate. There’s no real downer in the cast. I would also like to take the time to say all the actresses who play Margaret Keane’s daughter all did an excellent job, particularly considering how important this role is.

The only other major praise I would like to give to this film is its cinematography, which obviously considering this is a Tim Burton movie is excellent. Burton may be giving us a more realistic world than previous films he has done, but he really brings his style to it and it does this film a major credit and makes it very viewable. I reckon I am going to spot a lot of things I didn’t notice the first time on repeat viewings. For example there is a subtle reference to Andy Warhol, which I didn’t notice initially, but my mum pointed it out to me in our post viewing discussion. I am hoping that I am going to find more moments like that. And while I’m at it I will also say the music is great Long time Burton music man Danny Elfman returns on good form for the score and I enjoy the song Big eyes by Lana Del Ray and it really kills me to say that cause I am definitely not a fan and my cousin Joe particularly was praising the music in our post movie discussion and insisted it get a mention in this review.

Can I find any negatives towards this film, yes, I can definitely find some negatives. As I mentioned the first half is paced pretty badly, in the sense that it feels too quick and we can’t attach ourselves to the characters as well but as I mentioned previously, the second half makes up for it. I also felt there were a couple of characters that could have been taken out and it wouldn’t have made a difference, particularly Reuben. However, much like my other review that has come out today ‘Patema Inverted’ it doesn’t feel like these negatives really mess up my entire enjoyment for the film, but they do linger with me a lot more than Patema Inverted. That’s not to say I dislike the film, far from it, it just means that I notice the problems a lot more and I don’t need these pointed out to me as much.

I went to this film with three other people, my mum and my two cousins who I was spending the Christmas period with. We all have different age ranges and different taste in films, but we all came out really enjoying this film, which I think suggests that this film is going to have a large universal appeal. I think a lot of people who are going to be Nay Sayers on this film, like I suspected my cousin Amy (who wanted to see Annie or Dumb and Dumber To and yes that really is the title of the film I haven’t made a spelling error) was going to be, will come out feeling very surprised, admittedly she believed this film was going to be great for art lovers but not for a general audience, however she went back on this opinion by the end of the film and believed it was a good film. That’s the best way to summarise this film. It’s a good film and I feel it’s really being under-sold by its marketing and its lack of screening, especially considering, from what I have heard about the other films that have come out on Boxing Day this year, this is probably going to be the best one. It will not succeed at the box office, that’s a certainty and I am doubtful that most of you can go and see a screening of this as I suspect it will be taken out of syndication very quickly, however it will probably mean it will go on DVD sale relatively quickly. Try and see it in a cinema if you can, yes this film has flaws, but it is a really great watch and if you don’t feel like doing that, please get this film on DVD. Rent it if you don’t feel fully confident from my review. I would like to see this film get some recognition and some success as Tim Burton has done an excellent film here and I think he should be rewarded for trying something so radical for his style, yet very pleasing.

Well, that’s my last review for 2014 and I am looking forward to doing more in 2015. If you would like to leave a comment on this review or any of my previous reviews, please do in the comments section. We welcome any opinion no matter what and I will try to reply to as many as I can, you don’t need an account and you don’t need to be from a certain area to write it. You just need to have an opinion and you just need to be able to type it down.

Now, as I promised, I was going to explain in this review how you are going to be able to post your own reviews on this site. It’s very simple. From January 1st you can send an email to calvin@axia-asd.co.uk. Attach your review in a word document to the email along with your name and what film you are reviewing we cannot accept anonymous reviews in the context of the email though we will leave your name off the review if you request that. It can be anything you like, it doesn’t have to be a current cinema film, and it doesn’t have to be out that year. It can honestly, be anything you like even a film I have previously reviewed. Send your review, your discussion or even a top ten list if you like. We will accept anything and we will try to not refuse anything.

I am looking forward to reading through some of your film thoughts and they will be posted on our web site alongside any review that I am bringing out on the day and I will make sure to promote your work so people will see it in my reviews.

With 2014 coming to a close we must look forward to 2015, but I am not going to be doing a review in the first week of January and the scheduling of my reviews are going to change slightly. Instead of releasing them every fortnight, we are going to be releasing them every week, and they are going to be coming out on a Friday instead of a Wednesday. This is mainly to provide a better schedule of films and it will also allow me to get a larger variety of films. I chose Friday because that is the general release day.

I will be releasing my first review of 2015 on January 16. However on January 9 I will be bringing out my Top Ten Best films of 2014 list and my Top Ten Worst films of 2014 list. I look forward to seeing some of your best/worst films of the year as well.

Thank you for joining me on this brilliant first year for the Axia Film Society. It was an absolute pleasure to do and I am glad to see people have got enjoyment out of this. I hope to see all of you back again in 2015 as it is a pleasure to do this for anyone who wants to see this.

Special thanks to Dream, Carly, and Gail who have made this possible.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“PATEMA INVERTED”

Yes, its a surprise review, for the Christmas period and of course I decided it was going to be a film I had been thinking about all year but hadn’t really got round to watching (in actuality, I missed it when it first came out and the DVD release kept getting pushed back so much that I was afraid to put it on the review schedule in case it didn’t come out in time). 

Patema Inverted was released in Japan in late 2013 but it got a bit of an interest following this years Scotland Loves Anime tour and, which sparked my interest in the idea of it and it did also receive a cinematic release on 2 May this year for a limited period only. However I completely missed this as I was concentrating so hard on going to see The Wind Rises, which was coming out the very next week, so it completely passed me by, I only discovered it had received its release around the time I was doing research for the Axia Film Society at the time I was starting it up and doing my first Sin City review. I always planned to get it on DVD to see what I had missed out on, but as I mentioned before, the release date kept getting pushed back. Now it is finally here in all forms, including the cheapest option of the DVD by itself, which came out two days ago from this reviews publication (I hope). 

With all that said and all that hype that I had built up for myself I was relatively looking forward to seeing this film, although I wasn’t expecting too much out of it, I was just expecting it to be another good anime film that had had some success on the film festival circuits. That being said, however there have been a couple of my favourite films that have had that treatment. For example my favourite film of last year Wolf Children. (If you haven’t seen it, its basically Twilight, done right). That and I wasn’t aware of the Directors any other work being that the only other film that he seems to have produced is Time of Eve, which also came out this year but I haven’t seen it up to this point because I was already backed up with a ton of films I had to see for my top ten list which is coming out next week. But all in all I took a special time and notice to see this film. 

As usual I am starting with the plot in this review and this plot is how I could describe as both complicated and yet simple to understand on a basic level. The plot centres around a young girl named Patema who lives underground with her friends and family as they are a part of a group of people who have been affected by an accident that has affected the world’s gravity and as a result their gravity is inverted to ours, hence the title. She, however, comes across our world by accident where the gravity is what we would describe as normal and comes across a young boy named Age, who takes her in, in this strange new world, though Age’s world is not as beautiful as Patema had imagined, as the incident that has affected the earths gravity has caused a police state to rise filled with propaganda and religious dogma, and Patema’s kind are sought out as evil sinners. 

Now, that plot may not sound that original at first, however its the way Patema Inverted handles the plot that makes it incredibly original. This is incredibly high concept Sci Fi, in fact it’s kind of the high concept Sci Fi I was expecting to get from Interstellar, which I reviewed earlier this year. The plot really builds this world, or I should say both of the worlds as the plot constantly has to dangle between the two, as well as the perspectives of the two lead characters, and it’s done expertly. The film lasts 99 minutes in total and it makes use of all of it, there is no portion of this film where you would not be engaged. 

The writing is superb and it flows brilliantly, it has some of the best pacing of any film I have seen all year. I really was worried about this film coming to an end because it would mean I would have to stop watching this incredible plot line. It got me really invested in these characters. Speaking of the characters, they are excellent too. Patema and Age are both a really believable couple, their connection and chemistry are incredible because of the set piece of they literally rely on each other to survive. If Age lets go of Patema she will fall into the sky, literally. The really sell their individual needs to survive and the wonderment of each others worlds. I love the main characters personalities Patema gives off her inquisitive nature and both her wonderment and fear of this new world that she has dreamed of seeing. Age also give off a fearful young man living under the state that has caused him pain and his desire to make things right and achieve his goals and will not wait to act unlike some similar lesser anime characters, it really endears you to them

As for the side characters, they don’t tend to get a lot of development, or at least not as much development, but I think they get just enough to be worthwhile and I still came out loving them at the end. Another high criticism for this movie probably could have been the villain, considering that he initially doesn’t get too much depth and he does sort of veer into the whole, evil for the sake of evil villain. There a a few lines toward the end that will explain a lot of his motivation and he still feels threatening, you believe he controls this state and will enforce it with an iron fist or bullet to keep his control of it, plus its also helped by the choice of the actor for the villain, but we will get into that later. 

Of all the criticism I saw coming towards this movie after I ended up watching it, were, there were a few things that weren’t explained, but I think thats not a negative in my book, again it didn’t bother me too much as I felt it was open to audience interpretation, and also if you thought long and hard about it, you probably could have figured it out, if you didn’t want to go down that route. Overall if plot is really your thing when it comes to a film, this is one to really look out for, its probably the most original plot I’ve seen all year and as I said it is ground breaking Sci Fi, but I really don’t want to call it Sci Fi because I think that would put too many people off that wouldn’t want to go and see a Sci Fi film, despite the fact that this doesn’t have a ton of the Sci Fi tropes like space travel and aliens that a lot of people are put off by, from the great world it built to the characters I fell in love with, to the connection and romance between the two lead characters, it was great and despite the fact I didn’t want it to end I was very satisfied with the ending.

In terms of acting this film was not made by a major studio so I wasn’t sure if they were going to get decent voice actors to play these characters, after all this film was largely funded by a kickstarter project, but Anime Limited got out the cheque book to get some seasoned actors that have been in several animes in the past, most of which I have enjoyed. Now I’ve watched the english dubbed version rather than the original japanese, mainly because most of the reviews for this film are already of the japanese version, rather than the english dub. I know a lot of anime purists will watch the film in it’s original japanese with english sub titles, but I mainly wait for the dubbed to turn up as I feel it helps me concentrate on the plot and character development better. 

Cassandra Morris does an excellent job playing Patema, and I think this film with make her a large main stay and actor in this genre, she is up and coming right now, but I’m hoping she will get more work on the back of this, having only done a few dubs for 4kids at this point. Age is played brilliantly by Michael Sinterniklaas and he does a brilliant job with this character as well, especially considering most people know him for playing Chris in the awful Sonic X Anime. Again I’m hoping he will get larger roles after this, but I think it’s almost certain, considering his resume includes this and my favourite movie of all time, Summer Wars. The rest of the cast do an excellent job as well, it’s great to see Patrick Seitz in this movie, playing Jackoo and I’m really looking forward to him returning next year to play Frankie in One Piece (yes I know most people have already seen most episodes of One Piece, but I’m following the box sets so I have to wait until next year). But one of the real standouts for me is Richard Epcar as the villain Izamura. As I said this villain would have failed if Richard Epcar had not delivered an amazing performance, he really sells this characters threatening nature and his underlying reasons for his sense of control and his fear of losing control. 

I could go into a lot of the other members of the cast, particularly Bill Lader playing elder and Robbie Daymond in the role of Porta, but I wouldn’t have enough time in this review and it would just further iterate my point that this is one of the best english dub casts of an anime I have seen in a while, they really play off each other very well. Granted they are given a lot to do with the excellent writing, but I would not undersell how much they bought to it and their performances were brilliant enough and I hope will earn them some recognition at whatever Anime awards are possibly coming up.

The big discussion now, is now more on the presentation of the overall film, and let me tell you right now, this film is visually outstanding. It is one of the best animated, best designed movies I have seen in a long time. I really regret not seeing this film in the Cinema because it would have blown my mind. In order to get the full effect of the film I made sure to watch the Blu Ray version, having bought the Blu Ray and DVD combo pack and I also made sure to watch it at night and turn off the lights, which is how I recommend you watch this film, it will help you to get the full effect. 

The animation has to show off the gravity effects and the changes of perspective between the characters, and it does this brilliantly, it can be disorientating, but that’s the effect its meant to give and your eyes will adjust to it relatively quickly and the movement of gravity physics which will take getting used to but once you get the hang of it sells the wonder and fear that this world gives and the idea of what is up or down and the idea of falling into the sky . It’s not just the gravity effects which are amazing, its also the small things, like the still shots which really accentuate the size and scope of both worlds, the actual design choices, the colours of the animation, everything is done brilliantly, even small aspects are given great detail. This really feels like a living, breathing world and during some of the high up shots and the shots surrounding the sky, I was getting slight vertigo just looking at it, it really will have that effect. The character designs are also pretty decent. Patema gets a pretty similar anime girls style, especially with the green hair, but I think it matches her bubbly and inquisitive personality, which is also reflected in her outfit choices as well. Again the animators clearly knew what they were doing and this also reflects in the people that live in the inverted world. As for the people that live in the normal gravity world, they’re suitably designed to look like drones and basically people living under the thumb of the state and this plays to amazing effect. 

I can’t stress how much love and care went into the animation for this. It has to be seen to be believed. There are a ton of things I could easily mention in regards to other ways, as to how the animation works so well but it would be giving away too many plot points. You have to see it to believe it and that’s really how I can sum up the art style and visuals of this film. 

Is there a negative I can say about this film? Well there a few of points I possibly could bring up on technical levels, like as I mentioned a few things are kind of left open to audience interpretation, and some of the lesser developments of characters, as I said before I think if those characters had been developed more than they already were, they would have taken up too much time in the movie, or the movie would have been too long. I think they are given just enough for it to work and I still felt that connection at the end of the film. At the end of the day it’s Patema and Age’s story.

The point really to make though is that despite the fact this film does have negatives that I can recognise, they don’t bother me. They didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the film and to be honest whether I saw a fault or not I thought, who cares, this is unbelievably good to watch. I can’t really sum it up any better way, I think you will just have to see it to see my point. 

To sum up. I loved this film. Out of all the films I didn’t go to see in the cinema this year, this was my biggest regret, though admittedly a limited release probably meant it wasn’t playing in a cinema anywhere near me. It’s just stunning how much love and care went into making it. The plots great, the characters are great, it’s got some of the best animation I have seen in years and a soundtrack that matched it perfectly, its already in my favourite anime films , along with films like Spirited Away, Summer Wars, Wolf Children, Ghost in the Shell and Jin-roh the Wolf Brigade. 

If you buy no other film in the new year sales, track down a copy of Patema Inverted. I want this film to be a success and I’m not sure it’s going to be that way considering how limited the press releases on it have been. If you are going to see it, please do all you can to track down a Blu Ray copy and watch it on an excellent TV, at night, with the curtains drawn, it really is the best way to see this film, and for the love of god please see this film, its one brilliant film that you have to experience. Thats the best way to sum it up. It’s not a film, its an experience. 

Well, sorry for springing a surprise review on you guys, but I really felt this review needed to get out and with the companies approval I have managed to do that. Admittedly as I said, it wasn’t announced, mainly due to the fact that I wasn’t sure this film was going to come out this month.

Please go and check out my review of Big Eyes which is online now, especially if you want to find out whats coming up next and if you’re curious about submitting your own reviews, discussions or top ten lists as we go through the details on how you can do that in that review and the requirements for it. 

Please, if you want to discuss Patema Inverted or any of the other animated films I have mentioned, leave a comment. We accept all opinions and view points and I am up to replying to as many as possible. It can be as short or as long as you want, it doesn’t matter, but it’s always good to get a discussion going. 

Thanks for reading this review and I hope you will check out the reviews I have planned for 2015.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“THE IMITATION GAME”

Now the great thing about this time of year is that there are a ton of films that come out that will often be nominated for best picture at the Oscars. However, we, on a lot of occasions do need to wait a month or so to get most of these titles in Britain, but you will hear about the hype and you will go and see them when they come out and one film that seems to be getting a ton of hype is this weeks film, the ‘Imitation Game’.

This film is already tipped to be a front runner to potentially win best picture at the Oscars along with ‘Boyhood’, ‘Bird Man’ and ‘Selma’, and Benedict Cumberbatch has already been hyped to win an Oscar for his part in the film, so I felt it was necessary to check out the film when getting back into my reviews (plus it was a good excuse not to review ‘Hunger Games’). So after watching it, do I believe it matches up to its hype, you’d better believe it, this film matches up to the hype very much.

The films plot centres on telling the story of Alan Turing and his true life story of his attempts to break the enigma code and win World War 2. The film tells this story from 3 viewpoints, one taking place in 1928 when Turing was a younger man, one during the Second World War and one in 1951 around the time Turing was being investigated for reasons that are explained in the film, and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. Now initially you get the sense that these three plot points are going to be difficult to follow and won’t transition well together, but it’s surprisingly easy to follow and works very well. All three points are told brilliantly and the cutting back between them works to create a satisfying whole. The film is paced almost perfectly and the story is really given the time to flow brilliantly. 

Needless to say this film’s story is brilliant, it will grip you throughout its running time. It’s never dull or boring and it never feels like it drags especially considering this film runs at 114 minutes which is much shorter than most films which are clearly aiming for an Oscar which can often have the issue of struggling to keep peoples attention for a long running time. The film also brilliantly gets people attached to the characters especially considering that these are all based on ‘real extraordinary people’, in recent history. This film’s story also has a ton of ‘heart’. I really get a sense that the Directors and the Writers really concentrated on telling a story that would brilliantly reflect these peoples lives and the fact that this story was pretty much “Classified” for 50 Years!, which is referenced very well by how secretive the operation is throughout the entire film and this secretive nature does not feel down like in some films that handle this sort of storyline. You feel the weight and necessity of this project! So, to sum up, this is an excellent story, it’s definitely at the minute, my vote for potentially winning best adapted screenplay at both the Oscars and the BAFTA’s.

Acting wise, well this film had several stand out performances, all of which I suspect we will be seeing a lot of come award season, but the big hype has been Benedict Cumberbatch’s role as the main character of Alan Turing. I will say going into this film I feared that Benedict Cumberbatch was becoming too typecast, seeing how a lot of his roles have become slightly samey, taking for example his performance as Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate, feeling very similar to his Sherlock performance, however, this film has given him a chance to shine and break away from a lot of those elements that may have caused this thought. He plays the role brilliantly, and whilst it does seem quite similar to his ‘Sherlock’ persona, he plays it differently enough that you’re not just seeing ‘Sherlock’ on screen, you are seen Alan Turing! He plays the character kind of similar to the idea of a serious version of ‘Sheldon’ from the ‘Big Bang Theory” initially, but there’s a lot more depth given to the character later on. He’s played rather like a character who is completely separated from society and living in his own world, but he has a thousand thoughts going on in a minute and you believe he can act upon them at any time, but he is also throughout the film learning to build on the relationships and trust people and that extra level of humanity that Benedict brings to the role through a few humorous lines here or there that really sells it.

I have no objection to Benedict Cumberbatch winning the Oscar for best actor, although my personal pick at this point in time is still Michael Fassbender for his role in Frank. As for the rest of the cast, well, they all do a brilliant job, there isn’t a bad performance in this movie. Keira Knightley starts off in a position where I thought I was going to have some negative thoughts about, but she gets much better throughout the film, and I loved her performance overall. It’s a breath of fresh air considering her performances in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ which left me feeling cold as well as questionable roles in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ sequels. Matthew Goode does a very good role as fellow collaborator Hugh Alexander and you get a sense that he is a man that wants to do his duty but struggles to work with Alan Turing. Charles Dance does an excellent performance although he isn’t in the film as much as I would have liked him to have been, though I don’t know if it would have benefited much with his role being over exposed potentially. Whilst I am at it I also really enjoyed Mark Strong in this film, he’s really selling himself in this serious role which is kind of bizarre for me as I associate him with some of his more less serious or comedy roles such as his performance in ‘Kick Ass’. Overall this story was written very well is sold brilliantly by its cast and each one of them deserves special praise.

I would also, in this review, like to praise the film’s editing, the film does a brilliant job inter cutting the various time periods that the film takes place in, but it also shows the effect of World War 2 very well for its shots and it’s use of the stock footage. It’s also the only area where I found a negative to this film, which is, the scenes of warfare and the blitz left a lot to be desired. They weren’t bad per say, it’s just the ‘computer effects’ for them were quite obviously “computer effects” and I felt at times they would be better suited in a video game than an actual big budget film. As I said they aren’t bad, but they are kind of distracting and if it’s the only negative you have for this film then you know you could definitely do worse and the point kind of cancels itself out. Another brilliant positive aspect is the set design and the way the shots are produced. You will ‘believe’ that this film takes place in World War 2, this doesn’t feel like your average period drama and that is saying a lot considering that this is a film that has to sell the World War 2 setting using very little of actual battles or conflict. 

Now, Dr Buchan, who is Axia ASD’s Ltd Director did manage to get a day off and was interested enough in the film to go and see it with me, which I welcomed as I like getting different perspectives on the same film, but we came out with very similar thoughts on the film. Her position was that she loved the film, found it very thought provoking and without giving away spoilers found the ending very emotional. Which if I am honest I didn’t have as much of an emotional reaction with the end, not because I didn’t bond with the characters that much, I very much did, but because I had done my research on the man involved and knew where this was going, so there wasn’t much surprise or weight of ambiguity. I knew where this film was going because of my research, but it still on a lot of levels hit very hard. I am not going to give it away you’re just going to have to see the movie to find out what I mean. 

Do I have any really negative points, well actually NO!! This isn’t like ‘Pride’ where I really struggled and really pricked my brain to nit pick the film to find negatives. I really, apart from some of the computer shots to do with the battles can’t think of anything and to be honest most of my criticism’s of ‘Pride’ I probably would have taken out of that review in hindsight. But that’s how these sort of things often go when you are writing your reviews based on your initial thoughts.

To sum up. This film is gloriously good. I loved almost every second of it. It had excellent writing, an excellent cast and just was a delight to sit through on a lot of levels. If this film is not nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars it is doing itself an injustice. If you haven’t been to the pictures to see this, then go and see it. Hell if you don’t want to go to the cinema to, then get this on DVD as soon as it comes out. It is excellent and Benedict Cumberbatch is really going places with his acting career. It makes me glad that he had been cast as Dr Strange in the upcoming Marvel movie and he has also been cast as Shere Khan in the Jungle Book remake, so we the audience are winning all the way. 

If you agree or disagree on this film and my opinion, please feel free to leave a comment it’s great to get a discussion going, we accept all opinions, all points, no matter how long or brief they are.

Well I’m afraid we are going to have to take a slightly longer period to get the next review out as Axia is going on it’s Christmas Holiday for a bit, but I’m not waiting a long time for the next review. 

Check back on the site on December 31st when I’ll be reviewing Tim Burton’s latest film ‘Big Eyes’. If you want to go and see the film before my review, it comes out in cinemas on December 26th, and trust me, I think this is going to be a good one. Also check out that review if you want to get details on how to add your own reviews, discussion or top ten lists to the site. We will be giving you all the details that you need and explaining exactly what we are looking for.

Thanks for reading my review. I hope you’ll return to the website in the future.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“INTERSTELLAR”

Well guys I am back from India and raring to go. I was so looking forward to getting back into the cinema. At the time of this publication on my review, I have only been back in the UK for five days, so I was a bit pressed to get to a cinema to see this film, and fortunately I have managed to do it and I am pleased to say I am relatively happy with it.

I chose Interstellar for a review a long time before the hype first started for the film, purely on the fact that this film was directed by Christopher Nolan, who has done films in the past that I have really enjoyed, such as, ‘Inception’, ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight’. However in recent memory his films have leaned more towards misses than hits, much recent examples being ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and ‘Man of Steel’, even though with that film he only had a Producers credit. But I thought that there was some possibility that this film could be a good come back and I would say on a lot of levels it probably is!

Once again we are going to start with the plot. With this film Christopher Nolan has set the film in and Earth that has been drastically been affected with what I am assuming is climate change (the film never does quite establish the context of what is causing problems on earth), and that new life can only exist on a new planet which can support human’s, thus what remains of NASSA, recruits a former pilot played by Matthew McConnaghy to lead a mission to find a new planet. Beyond that the film has a few twists and turns to the plot which I won’t spoil here as I do think this film is worth a watch, but, needles to say the plot does its job for the most parts.

The film kind of suffers a bit towards the end because couple of the twists at that point are a bit more confusing, don’t make much sense and are very convenient, compared to a lot of other ways the film could have possibly ended. Overall though the plot is fairly decent and will not be too difficult for people to follow. Also give credit to Nolan in the fact that he doesn’t add too many sub-plots like a lot of his previous films have done. I also believe his dialogue has drastically improved since ‘Man of Steele’.

The biggest fault with ‘Man of Steel’ was, that the dialogue didn’t allow the characters to be characters, they were just kind of propping up the weight of the movie, and whilst a bit of that does exist here, these characters have much more natural dialogue than known Super Hero Movies. McConnaghy is a very believable loving father. Michael Caine seems like a man who still believes that humanity is worth saving and for the most part the characters are put to decent use. It’s not a s good as, I will say, Pride, where every character was put to great use, but those are two completely different films, so the comparison probably isn’t that fair. The film also builds tension really well this film feels like a race against time with the time difference between the planets and it is hammered in a lot to keep you engaged.

Most importantly, this film just feels like a fairly decent Sci Fi Script and I think that’s all it needed to be. With that said, lets move on to the Acting.

Most of the actors do a pretty decent job. A couple of the supporting cast don’t do as well, but I don’t think they are given that much to do so as a result they can’t really flex their acting muscles either way. The only performance I wasn’t really in to was the guy who did the voice of the ‘AI’ for the ship, who I felt was really just doing an impression of Hal from 2001, most of the time and Anne Hathaway, who I’m not someone who jumps on the ‘let’s hate Anne Hathaway bus’, but I really think in this movie she is not really going to sway much of her ’haters’. She’s not bad, she just doesn’t put 100% into it, although I do think she is trying!

The child actors do pretty decent performance’s as well and I enjoyed Jessica Chastian, although I can’t really go too far into what her role is as it will spoil a bit of the film later on, just trust me that she does a good job! Michael Caine is as good as ever, although I think Nolan is relying a bit too heavily on him and he is getting a bit typecast in these films. The only other actor I had a bit of a problem with was Casey Affleck, but that is more down to his character during the writing than it was actually his performance. I think he was given a bit of bad direction, because he does seem to shift back and forth in what role he is supposed to be playing.

So overall, decent acting, could do a lot worse, but again could have been done better, and give credit though as this is another Matthew McConnaghy performance this year that I actually enjoyed (the other being, Dallas Buyers Club).

If I can take it back to the plot for a bit, one of the things I was concerned about with this film was it’s length. This film lasts 166 minutes! Which is exactly the same length as another film I went to the cinema to see recently ‘Gone Girl’. Now where ‘Gone Girl’ used every one of its minutes to absolute effect and it warranted it’s length, Interstellar does manage to do the same, however there were a couple of things that could have been cut from the film and I do feel a lot of that time was used by over explanations, which a lot of the time weren’t necessary. There is no need for this film to be nearly 3 hours long.

Now amazingly I did actually manage to get to see this film in IMAX despite my pessimism in my earlier review that I didn’t believe I would get back in time. I will say if you are going to see this film at the cinemas after this review I will urge people to go and see this film in IMAX if possible, this film is visually stunning! All the space shots are amazing as well as the shots of Ice planet that were shot on location in Iceland, it uses the widescreen to full effect and the sound quality is top notch. With that being said though you really get a sense that Nolan is trying to make his version of 2001 A Space Odyssey, in fact a couple of the shots feel like they were directly lifted from 2001 A Space Odyssey, prime example being when the ship is going through the worm hole, feeling very similar to the shot at the end of 2001 when the ship is arriving near Jupiter. Also a couple of shots towards the end also had a very similar effect to 2001. However I don’t think this film was really marketed as being a modern day version of 2001 A Space Odyssey, it more felt like it was competing with last years hit success Gravity and to be honest with you, whilst Gravity was very good I didn’t feel it’s story was as good as its effects.

This film however doesn’t quite measure up to Gravity on the effects level. Whereas this film gives you amazing space shots, Gravity actually made you feel like you were in space and I think this film would have done better on the visual effects department if it had come out before Gravity. I still think Gravity would have been considered the superior movie and would have probably got its Oscar for its effects still, but I think we hold Interstellar in higher regard because of it coming earlier, I don’t think this one will be as remembered for it’s effects.

Does this film have negatives, if I’m honest, yes, but these negatives don’t distract too much from the movie for the most part. Some aspects of the plot do succumb to the usual Christopher Nolan tropes which sometimes work in his favour and sometimes don’t. In this case it’s more of the former than the latter, but the latter is very noticeable when it comes up. For example Matthew McConnaghy’s character rather quickly decides he’s definitely going to take on the mission despite the risks and the possibility of not seeing his children for what could be decades, their time. I would have liked to see more scenes of him debating whether he should do it. He just accepts it and does it! Though I think that is kind of made up for the scenes with his daughter at the beginning.

This film had a very slow start, honestly it only really got very interesting at the point where McConnaghy leaves to start the space mission. Also as I said, this film does copy a lot from Gravity and 2001 and I think the Gravity stuff is a bit more forgivable considering these films were probably both in production around the same time. To be fair 2001 A Space Odyssey is such an influential film it isn’t surprising that Nolan would base a lot on it. Also the film suffers from some fairly big plot holes and story elements that aren’t explained too well as well.

Once again, I took my friend Alex to see this film, mainly because we were both trying to get back to normal life after being in India for nearly a month and because I felt I owed him after suffering through the misery of Ninja Turtles. We both came to the same conclusion about this film that we thought it was good but we didn’t think it was great. I think that was more down to its hype than it is it’s actual quality. We believed we were getting a game changing movie done by one of the biggest directors in Hollywood, when in reality you are just getting a very decent Sci Fi film, and I think if it had been marketed that way maybe we might have enjoyed it more than we actually did.

That’s not to say Interstellar is a bad film, oh god no, for the amount you pay to go and get a cinema ticket you could do a lot worse right now.

In summary I’d say, go and see this move, I thinks it’s worth a view and I think some people are going to love it, I just think I’m not one of those who loved it. I like it, don’t get me wrong on that front, but it’s probably not going to end up in my top ten best films of the year list, and if I were going to recommend Sci Fi movies, I can think of at least four or five other films I would recommend over this one, and most of them are easy to rent in DVD form.

So that’s my first review back guys. What do you think? Did I get the film right or was my opinion off the mark. Did I miss something which might explain why I liked it, but didn’t fully like it? I’ll accept any views and any comments. Type it in even if you just want to make it a brief I agree/disagree comment. Anything is welcome. Keep your eyes out on the website because from January 1st 2015 you are going to be able to place your own reviews, discussions and top ten lists on the site. We haven’t fully established how we are going to do this yet, but we have set a date and we will be giving you details on how to do this in my review which will be coming out on December 31st.

It’s time to move on though, however, come back on December 10th when I will be reviewing the potentially Oscar nominated ‘The Imitation Game’ and I will also be getting some comments from Dr Linda Buchan the Director of Axia ASD Ltd on the film as she is going with me.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES”

Right, lets get one thing clear before we go into this, so people understand what stance I’m coming from watching this. I ‘really’ like Ninja Turtles, I really enjoy it as a franchise. I love the various animated series, I do get a kick out of live action films and I have read some of the comics, the majority of which are enjoyable. When Turtles are good they are really good, but when they are bad believe me, you will know it sucks.

To be honest, when I heard there was a live action re-boot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coming out this year, I was really hyped, that is until I saw the name of the producer, “Michael Bay”. Me and Mr Bay have a really tenuous relationship when it comes to films. He has not made a single film that I have enjoyed! This years track record has been particularly bad having made The Purge Anarchy and the abysmal Transformers Age of Extinction plus we have another horror film from called Ouija coming out soon which judging from the trailer we shouldn’t look forward to and I probably won’t see it. But I thought, if he is only in a producer role then this film may have some chance, and then I saw the Director! This film is directed by Jonathan Liebesman, who is a regular Michael Bay director and has directed the awful films Battle: Los Angeles and Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Beginning. So my stance was, I was coming into this film as a Turtles fan, with very low expectations.

The plot was just a bore to sit through, and for a Turtles film, that is really saying a lot. This is very typical Michael Bay in a sense. His films really seem to have a nack for pushing the story and the characters to the background in order to put more of the focus on the action sequences and the special effects. So as a result, we have really hollow characters who you have absolutely no investment in!

April O’Neil starts out alright, but then she gets even duller as the film goes on and she is virtually a nonentity. Also the writers took lots of leaps and bounds to make her more integral to the plot, but this kind of has a negative effect overall, because it feels really forced.

There are a lot of changes to the origins of the Turtles from their comic and animated series counterparts and whilst some of them are alright, some of the changes put in really feel out of place and unnecessary. Also these villains really feel completely un-threatening, with the one exception being The Shredder who is done well in this movie. This is a really good interpretation of The Shredder, but his overall motivations feel really confusing, we don’t understand why he wants to take part in the villains plot, he really feels like a token thug and patsy for the overall villain which is a new character called “Eric Sacks”. Before anyone says anything, I’m not spoiling anything by mentioning that, even if you hadn’t seen the trailers for this film, its so obvious he is the villain. William Fichtner really plays this character completely un-subtly, but I think that was more a fault of the writers than it was in his acting ability, but we will get back to that later.

The comics and the animated series, always had the Foot Clan as a group of ruthless ragtag Ninja’s. This film seems to have the idea to have them as a sort of weird paramilitary team, and as a result they come across as completely non-threatening. The Turtles can easily kick their arses, why and I supposed to feel afraid for them? Also there is a female general in the Foot Clan who was built up as having a challenge for Turtles and playing a bigger role, but she is cast aside so un-ceremoniously without ever been given a chance to shine, why am I caring whether the Turtles win when these villains are so bad!! The villains motivations are also really confusing and eventually suffers from a major plot hole, we get kind of why they want to do the overall plot that is going to be a major part of the climax, but it still felt very hollow because the motivations are so simple, and I know a lot of people could go into a Ninja Turtles movie with that, but it wasn’t enough for me, especially when you’ve got much better comic movies to compare it against.

The film also tended to have very subtle references to past incarnations of Turtles, which range from pretty good, like the setting of the climax of the film, which I won’t spoil for people, and various lines of dialogue from characters. However, some of these really felt like they would be alienating to newcomers, which considering there are a lot of young kids now who have not been brought up on the older Ninja Turtles cartoons, this really should have been thought out. But this is a major anniversary of Ninja Turtles and people like me are aware of the older series, so these subtle references do alright by my books.

I went to see this film with my mate Alex, who really doesn’t know that much about Ninja Turtles, so we came from different perspectives, but we both again went in with low expectations, and he didn’t enjoy it either. This is a shame as I would have liked him to disagree with me so he could have gone back and looked up the previous incarnations of the characters. But he wasn’t motivated in any sense of the word, because this film did nothing to think that this franchise had anything to start with.

The plot overall was a mess, and as I said it has so little character to it, so as a result, there is so little investment. There was nothing to get us motivated, there was a bit here and there but the only reason I know these characters are Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello is because they said so. We don’t really get much into what their characters are by the end of the film and there is very little discussion about the overall relationships of all the different characters. Say what you like about the animated film TMNT, but at least that film went into the overall dynamic of the Turtles and their world, this film does not! Whilst this film also tries to do a bit of comedic moments in the middle of the actions similar to Guardians of the Galaxy, which I previously reviewed, this film ‘fails’ at that, whereas Guardians gave me quite a few chuckles which I enjoyed, this film gave me hardly any chuckles. Overall you got the point here, the plot was just ok at best and a real bore at worst and it kept shifting and it wasn’t worth sitting through the 101 minutes to get the good moments.

Moving on to the actors. This film felt like it had a hundred mis-casts. Megan Fox doesn’t make a good April O’Neill. She starts out alright, but as I said before she really fades towards the end and she is dull in this role at times. Will Arnett is also really un-funny and really dull to sit through, you’ve seen this character a hundred times and you’ve seen it acted this way a hundred times. William Fichtner is so un-subtle its unbelievable and while The Shredder is pretty good we aren’t allowed to see a lot of his acting ability because he’s kept in shadows half the time when he’s not in the CGI suit, oh but believe me we will get to that later. The weirdest mis-casting for me is the Turtles themselves, now I’m aware that three of the Turtles are voiced by professional voice actors, which I think is a good idea, I think celebrities wouldn’t do as good a job as you would just be able to hear the celebrity’s voices and not connect to them as a character. Then I realised that Leonardo was being voiced by Johnny Knoxville! What is the point of that, either go all voice actors or do all celebrities, don’t do half and half, you really can tell its Knoxville and it’s really, really distracting. Overall the actors are ok, but with a plot like this, they really will come across as dull and un-interesting so that as a result the best acting in the world couldn’t have saved this film and this film didn’t have brilliant in that department anyway for a large majority.

In typical Michael Bay fashion of the character and story taking a back seat to the effects and the action, you would hope that would be really good and at times, yes I could say it probably is. When my friend and I went to see this movie, we went to see it in 3D, and while the effect does kind of work for a couple of scenes, I think it actually hinders the movie quite largely, and some of it feels like you wouldn’t necessarily need it. We actually said after the film that we thought we probably would have seen and felt the effects a bit better if we had seen the 2D version. However there were a couple of effects where you knew the 3D was really required to get the full enjoyment out of it. This really could still be a negative point against the film as it means it will not translate well to the 2D screenings or to when people get it on home DVD.

Also I will just come out and say it, this film has some of the worst integration of live action CGI I have seen all year. The majority of the time you see characters like the Turtles and the Shredder, who I still can’t believe is CGI. You will believe you are looking at a completely different film, it feels like half of this was meant to be a 3D animated film, but then we suddenly cut back to the live action actors and they don’t seem to fit at all. It’s almost like you’re flicking between channels at times. What makes it worse is the fact that these Turtles look ugly, I have no idea whose bright suggestion it was to give the Turtles this design choice, it doesn’t make any sense compared to their previous incarnations and will probably just alienate long time fans.

As for the action sequences themselves, it really varies, some sequences are pretty good, like the Splinter fighting the Shredder, however I know most of those panned out camera sequences are only really working because the entire thing has been done on the computer, which is a problem for me considering that this is supposed to be a live action film, not an animated film! This film suffers from the typical Michael Bay action sequence trades as well, including shaky camera’s, weird slow motion out the middle of nowhere, massive destructions for no reason, and of course do I have to say it ‘explosions’, including an effect at the end which will really make you scratch your head and realise you will want to leave the theatre quickly.

Can I find a positive point in this movie? Well I’m trying but it’s really hard. There are some really great action sequences, it does feel like there was at least some attention paid to the Turtles overall continuity and world, and it starts out relatively ok, but this was a film that just didn’t work for me on so many levels and just trying to find a positive was really difficult. The best part about this film is the Shredder as the villain, but even then I found a lot of negative points to that.

To summarise this film was really difficult to sit through. It did have its good moments, but it just didn’t work overall. It really felt at times like a really good Ninja Turtle movie was trying to get out, but I don’t think this will work for old school fans and I don’t believe that new fans will get into the franchise because of it. It suffers way too much from the typical Michael Bay formula and I really think another director and producer should have been put on this project. This is a DVD rental at BEST, and at worst, its a complete avoid. It’s so disappointing, what could have been a Great Bad Ass Re-boot similar to the Dark Knight Trilogy for the Turtles, turns into a complete missed opportunity!!

Well that’s my review of Ninja Turtles guys. If you thought it was good please drop a comment to tell me that I’m wrong, but if you agree with me drop a comment as well. I will accept any opinions and comments. I’m up for a discussion with anyone if necessary. Once again I will mention I welcome “All” opinions.

Well I’m afraid there is going to be a bit of a break from the film society for the next fortnight as I am going on holiday to India. However the second I get back I will be reviewing films again. You won’t have to wait too much longer!! On 26th Nov I will be back with my review of the latest Christopher Nolan flick ‘Interstellar’.

The film comes out on November 7th if you want to see it before my review and if you’re going to do that please try and see it in IMAX as I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to by the time I get to see it and would appreciate a perspective on it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“DRACULA UNTOLD”

If someone asked me to name what I thought was the greatest work of fiction, I think off the top of my head I would probably say it was Dracula.  Bram Stoker created one of the greatest villains that has stood the test of time, as evident by the multiple incarnations of the character.  However, I have never seen a film which I thought did complete justice to the original novel.  They have always made weird changes that I have never thought added to the story, more took away from it.  The closest probably was the 1930 universal film starring Bela Lugosi, which I still highly recommend people to have in their DVD collection.

I knew going into Dracula Untold that I wasn’t going to get the Dracula film that would satisfy me after all this time, knowing that essentially it was a prequel, but I really thought there was some possibility I was going to get an interesting look into the character, and while this film tries that, I don’t think it succeeds.

The Plot, well the plot in this film, which centres around Vlad Tempes making a deal to become a vampire in order to defeat a Turkish army and prevent his son being drafted as a child soldier is really predictable, I genuinely could tell exactly where this film was going from pretty much the start to the finish.  There was no real surprise there although the only thing that didn’t catch me off surprise was the thing that I didn’t want, which was the lack of progression.  When I was going into this film I expected to see a man slowly giving into the darkness having made a deal with the best of intentions, but by the end of the film, losing his humanity.  But this film doesn’t have that!  

Luke Evans plays the title role of Vlad, obviously being a reference to the fact that Bram Stoker was inspired to create Dracula from the real life Romanian Leader “Vlad the Impaler”.    However, while Luke Evans is trying his best, the character he starts out as is exactly the same as the character he finishes as.  If he hadn’t said anything throughout this movie, I would never have believed this was Dracula.  I was, towards the end of the film thinking how is this character going to be the same character that is at the beginning of Bram Stokers novel.  At least most prequels get that right!

The plot itself actually kind of reminded me at times of a Japanese Animated film called “Dracula Sovereign of the Dammed”, which most people reading this will probably not have seen considering the fact that, to get a copy you will probably have to pay up to £300.00.  Yes, it’s that rare!  If you’re sadistically curious enough to actually check it out, then I suggest you check out “Bennet the Sage’s” review on Blip, as you essentially get the entire plot.  Whilst Sovereign of the Dammed is similar to this films plot, luckily this films plot is not as stupid as that film.  The major similarity being, it focuses on Dracula having a family, although with this film he has a family prior to becoming a vampire, where in Sovereign of the Dammed he has a family after becoming a vampire.  The only major difference is, this film focuses much more on the family dynamic, which is pretty good when comparing the films, but when you look at the film by itself, it’s not what I really want to be seeing in one of these movies.  It’s just boring, we know what is going to happen here.  There is no way this is going to end well, stop pretending there is a way it will end well!!

The other aspect that’s similar to Sovereign of the Dammed, is the fact that Untold tries to ground Dracula in some history, not realising that Bram Stoker’s original idea was that he was simply inspired by Vlad the Impaler, not that Dracula actually ‘was’ Vlad the Impaler.  I don’t think grounding Dracula in history does much for the character.  It goes about as well as any time people try to ground Robin Hood in history.  Good try here, doesn’t really work!! 

Also Dracula kind of is the typical pretty boy vampire in this movie, but believe me it is not as bad as Edward and the other idiotic characters from Twilight, because in this film his motivations are clear and he’s actually doing things for the right reasons.  

And while I’m on it this film does mess around quite a bit with vampire law it doesn’t bother me too much but does add to the predictability of the plot, trust me you’ll see what I mean when you see it

There is one point of this plot that I do enjoy, and that is the climax.  Dear god, this was a really good climax.  I don’t want to spoil it for anyone that genuinely wants to go and see this movie, so take my word it makes up for a lot of the problems with the opening of the movie.  

The film’s ending also indicates a sequel that will be closer to the original novel and will probably happen, but that’s the thing, we have not seen a progression of Dracula into becoming a villain in this movie, he’s essentially a good guy from start to finish, so any sequel has to show at least some progression, because hell knows there wasn’t any in this film.  If there is a sequel I think I probably will go and see it, hell I probably will review it for this but they have to show some of the off screen progression that has happened!

Overall this plot is not going to satisfy Dracula fans and considering the title that is saying a lot!

Most of the actors do a pretty decent job, but the writers really didn’t give them much of a role in this movie.  Pretty much it all comes down to Luke Evans playing the title role and Dominic Cooper playing the villain Sultan Mehammed.  Yes, seriously, Dracula is not the villain in his own movie!  Dominic Cooper does make a decent villain, hell he’s a pretty smart tactician when he finds out that Vlad has become a vampire.  But for me the stand out performance in this movie is Charles Dance from Game of Thrones, playing the role of the Master Vampire.  The prosthetics were great and he delivers a brilliant role, it’s just too bad that he is only in the movie for 5 minutes!  Seriously they could have done a lot more with this character, he doesn’t even really have to be there, he could have been a hallucination of Vlad’s trying to egg him on to become full vampire.  He had a brilliant set up here, especially considering that the master vampire can only be free of his particular curse if Vlad becomes Dracula.

As for the rest of the actors, I will say that the child actors aren’t too bad, but they could have been a lot better, but then again I have seen a lot worse performances from these sort of films where children expected to act their behinds off!  

I saw this film in IMAX and whilst I did believe it enhanced the film in quite a lot of ways, I don’t think it’s necessary for seeing this movie, which is both a positive and a negative.  A positive in the sense of that, none of the effects are going to be reduced in quality when seen on a smaller screen on televisions when it eventually comes out on DVD, but it also means you are not getting much out of paying the extra for the IMAX, but I still recommend people check it out in this definition. 

Most of the effects were pretty decent, although the real stand outs were the ones that we’d already seen in the trailer.  The set designs were pretty decent as well, but oh my god the action scenes while pretty good most of the time the same issues that so many films the feature sword fighting and martial arts make, the camera is too close!  I want an action sequence when I can actually tell what’s going on!  This film hardly let me see anything to cover up the fact that most of the action has been done by the CGI and Special Effects Department.  But I will say that one of the things that make the climax really good for me was the special effects, and the action sequences in that latter part, and it’s absolutely killing me that I can’t describe it to avoid spoilers.  

I have been very negative, so I think I should get some positive points out for this movie.  As I have already mentioned, the climax was really good.  A couple of the actors do sort of stand out, even though they really aren’t given much to do.  Special props to Sarah Gadon who had to play Vlad’s wife Marina on that point.  I do believe the set designs were really great, given a lot of the gothic nature that a Dracula movie probably should be giving us.  

If I’m honest I wasn’t totally bored when I was watching this movie.  I just found things really weren’t what I was expecting it to be in the most negative way possible.  That’s not to say this is a horrible movie, god no, of some of the movies that have come out this year this practically is purely in the middle in terms of rankings.  I would genuinely like to see a sequel to this movie.  I think Luke Evans could make a good Dracula, I just didn’t see enough of his evil side in this movie, which in any future Dracula movies he would have to get down.  Maybe Luke Evans has played a pretty decent villain in the past, I don’t really know that much about his career.  Maybe this will open up a new avenue for his acting career.  Only time will tell, and I do intend to review the Dracula Untold Sequel if it comes out.  Be warned though, if that review does come out I will be spoiling the end of this one in that review.

To summarise Dracula Untold is a film that leaves me wanting more.  I wanted more darkness, more conflict, more of Dracula being a villain, more vampire law explored.  This film didn’t really give me enough.  It started off on a lot of routes but didn’t finish them.  I will say there are some decent action sequences there and I think the idea of turning Dracula into an action hero, while admirable, doesn’t really work.  

This film could be good for people who don’t really know that much about Dracula and just want a decent action film or a decent period action film, and hey if you like the idea of crossing Thirty Days of Night with The Lord of the Rings, you might get something out of this.  But if you really enjoy the iconic character of Dracula and his history, this film is not for you.  We will just have to keep waiting for that actual definitive version of Dracula.

If that conclusion has depressed you, don’t worry because this film is better that the majority of vampire movies that have come out in recent memory, most notably, the god awful Twilight series (and I know saying that may piss off a lot of people but I really hate those movies).  

But while this film may turn Dracula into another pretty boy vampire, there are some decent vampire fiction out there that I could recommend.  I would definitely recommend picking up Scott Snyder graphic novel series “American Vampire”.  It’s been released on several volumes and I have only just started collecting it, but it’s really great vampire fiction that really dives into the mythology and the first volume is co-written by Stephen king.  I also could recommend Thirty Days of Night which takes the idea of vampires and their hierarchy to a really interesting level, although I would definitely say read the graphic novel rather than see the movie.  The movie made a lot of changes that don’t make sense.  

If you want to see a good vampire movie, check out the Christopher Lee, or Bela Lugosi Dracula movies, or, hell in recent memory I kind of enjoyed the ‘Let Me In’ remake.  But that’s just my opinion and I know it turned up on a lot of worst movies of 2010 lists.  

If you guys think I got something about this wrong, or maybe Dracula Untold did something for you that I didn’t see.  Or maybe you want to agree with me and say that it just doesn’t quite deliver on enough levels.  “Please” leave something in the comment section, I definitely welcome all opinions and also give some good vampire fiction that missed.

That’s five movies down so far and now we’re moving on to Movie No 6.  Check back on the website on 29 Oct when I will be posting my review of Michael Bay’s interpretation of ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’. 

At the time of this review the film was showing some previews which you may have already checked out or may be about to check out, but it’s released publicly everywhere on 17 Oct.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“PRIDE”

When I started the Axia Film Society I knew I was going to end up seeing a lot of films that I wouldn’t normally see. Pride definitely fits that category, although in a sense it doesn’t. I wouldn’t not see this movie, I just probably wouldn’t have gone to the cinema to see it, I would have waited for it to come out on DVD or seen it on Sky movies. This film is the reason I’m quite glad I started the film society because this film was worth going to the cinema for. Films like this are the reason why you’ll never see anyone bashing the British Film Industry.

Pride gives a very interesting look into both Gay Rights and the Miners Strike, although neither one is an overriding theme, this film’s main focus is the fact of prejudice itself and how it affects people. The plot ties in both of the struggles brilliantly. The plot itself centres around the political activist group known as Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners, and they resolve to raise money for the miners strike, believing that the way the police were treating the miners was exactly the same way the police were treating them.

Now the film is based on true life events, but I must be honest, I didn’t actually take time to really research this before going in to see the film. But I don’t think a film based on true life events should force you to do an incredible amount of research, you should just learn the basic gist. I think a good film based on true life should make you want to go and look up the books and the historical documents about the moment itself. Similar to how a comic movie should make you want to go and read the comics that the film is based on. In that case Pride definitely does that, it portrays the people of this historic event as extraordinary human beings that you only want to learn more about.

As the events are portrayed in the film, there are some issues in the sense that the plot kind of starts pretty slow and doesn’t feel very cinematic, in a sense, it feels more like a three part drama that was made specifically for Channel 4, but later on it definitely feels cinematic and does warrant it being a film release.

The writers also really took the time out to make sure that despite the fact that there are lots and lots of characters you get to know each one of them really well and you see their progression really well. I can’t think of any character in this film that I didn’t feel I knew more about by the end and didn’t feel that there was some sort of advancement in some sense, which considering some of the films that have been written these days, that is saying a lot!

This film had an all star cast, well not all star in the sense of movies, most of these are mainly well known for television roles, with the exception of Bill Nighy and Dominic West who have done quite a few films. Highlights include the aforementioned Bill Nighy and Dominic West, but we also have Andrew Scott, famous for playing Moriarty in BBC’s Sherlock, Joseph Gilgun who most people recognise from the Channel 4 drama Misfits, Paddy Considine and George McKay. Every actor does a brilliant job.

But for me the really stand out performance came from Imelda Staunton playing one of the main members of the miners support committee. She does a brilliant job as the woman trying to keep the miners happy whilst sticking up for the Lesbians and Gays Supporting The Miners group. For me she really should be up for Best Supporting Actress at the BAFTA’s. Andrew Scott also does an amazing job in his role, although I feel that he could have had a bit more screen time. Again I believe he definitely should be up for Best Supporting Actor, along with George McKay, who does a brilliant job playing the role of the closeted gay member of the group afraid to be discovered by his parents.

If any actors weren’t mentioned its purely because I don’t have enough time to mention all of them, but everyone did at least a fairly decent job if not giving one of the performances of their career. Whilst I am at it, I was expecting Bill Nighy to blow me away, and he didn’t completely, as I felt sometimes his performance was a bit too stilted, especially towards the beginning, he definitely by the end became a stand out member of the cast. Since he’s the most likely to be nominated for Best Actor in a leading role, despite the fact that he pretty much isn’t the leading actor of this film, I would not reject him winning that category at the BAFTA’s next year. I say BAFTA’s because I don’t believe this film will get nominated for an Oscar.

After coming from my last review, seeing Lucy, which was of the most pretentiously shot films I have seen, this was a breath of fresh air, this is one of the best shot films I have seen all year and also one of the best production designs I have seen. You can tell this film is set in the 80’s there is nothing that would suggest otherwise.

From the way the streets are set to the costume department, everything is done to exceptional detail. The film soundtrack also stood out for me as well, it will definitely be recognisable to anyone who spent a large amount of time in the gay disco scene in the 1980’s. It also had some brilliant dance choreography of any film I have seen this year on behalf of Dominic West. I never really want to comment of this sort of thing because I’m REALLY not a dance fan, but he definitely made it believable that he was a completely different character to any other role he had been in and made his character warm to the audience.

Do I have some negatives on this film? Well not as much as I would have thought, considering I can seem to find a negative in almost any film I watch! (Honestly this feels really forced) As I said before it does kind of start out slow and get better as the movie goes on, but I would hardly call that much of a negative. I also would have preferred it if a couple of the homophobic characters had changed towards the end of the film. A couple of them have a story arc but they are never sort of addressed again, especially the main homophobic character who really doesn’t change at all by the end of the movie in any positive sense, but I do understand that this is based on true events, so you are kind of limited in your options.

I also think that this film is too long in a sense. That may be weird seeing as I complained that Lucy was a bit too short, but I do think that there were a couple of scenes that could have been cut to save a bit of time. This film is the longest film that I have reviewed for the site so far, it runs just over the time Guardians of the Galaxy did. It’s just over two hours, but having said that, it’s still better than a couple of the longer films I have watched this year which definitely went on too long. In one case for example Twelve Years a Slave, which definitely should have been shorter than it was.

To summarise, this has actually been one of the best films I have seen all year, because I just can’t find that many negatives to look at. Considering a lot of the films that have come out this year, that is saying a lot. I really would expect this to turn up on my Top 10 best films of the year list, which as I mentioned, will likely be published at the end of the year, if not, the beginning of next year.

The film addresses prejudice in a “and then they came for me” attitude of “if we don’t stick up for them, then they wont stick up for us ideal”. At the same time it’s not about the miners or gay rights as is mentioned in the advertising campaign, it’s just about prejudice in general and how if we don’t support one another it’s not going to help anything. This is really great as a film for anyone who has felt downtrodden or like they are part of a group who is misunderstood.

I would definitely recommend anyone to go and see this in the Cinema, if not, check it out on DVD when it comes out later this year. Dr Buchan requested the film’s review, and has already asked me to pre-order the DVD on my feedback alone. Highly recommended.

Well guys did I get this right. Is this one of the Best British Films this year and just one of the best films this year all round, or was I watching this through rose tinted glasses. I’d love to get a comment from you guys whether a rebuttal or an agreement. I’ll take any thing here, and of course if there are any actors that I missed that you believe gave a stand out performance, then let me know.

Now its time to move on. The next two films are ones which I have been really looking forward to since I saw the film schedules for this year.

Come back on October 15 where I will be reviewing a modern update to a classic horror icon, its Dracula Untold. At the time of this reviews publication this film is not out yet, but you won’t have to wait long. It comes out Friday 3rd October, and should be available in most cinemas

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“LUCY”

Yes guys it’s finally true I am reviewing a movie for the site that isn’t based on a comic and it was done as a request when i first started setting up the page.

I must admit I had absolutely no expectations going into this movie all I knew is that it was directed by the same man who directed “The Fifth Element” and “Taken” and that it starred Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman (by the way he is one of my favourite actors of all time). While it feels like this movie is aiming to be a really high conceptual film, it just doesn’t work for me.

When I left the theatre I didn’t think that the film I had seen was bad, but the more I reflected on it on the way home the more I thought maybe I was a bit too generous.

I think Lucy’s biggest problem is in its plot. The plot centers around a young student living in Taiwan being forcibly used in an experiment by a drug lord which somehow causes her to gain super human abilities because she is accessing more of her brain.

Before you click off this review because you realise how stupid that sounds there is at least some explanation given on how this works. It’s not a lot but it’s some. The drug is supposedly developed from a substance that we get when we are a foetus during pregnancy, but I didn’t really cover that when I did a science degree so I can’t really say how true that really is or not. This film really relies on you believing the myth that we only use 10% of our brain in fact it is hammered in quite a lot.

The film constantly cuts back to how much percentage of her brain Lucy has access to at any one time, supposedly she is getting more and more powerful the more she is accessing the brain. Now I can tell you from doing my science degree I can fully establish that that is definitely a myth and we do in fact use quite a lot of our brain, so in reality if this really were happening we probably wouldn’t get the sort of super human abilities that Lucy gets.

This film’s plot’s biggest problem though is the fact that it definitely isn’t long enough to do this kind of story. I entered the theatre to see this at 4.00pm and I was out of the cinema at 5.30 and this included trailers at the beginning. So as a result a lot of things don’t get explained. Yes the scientist played by Morgan Freeman does try to explain a lot of what is going on, but it just feels really rushed. There is also a ton of things to do with the villains that isn’t explained. Yes they want to build a drug empire with this thing, whatever it is that’s been put inside Lucy and three other people from Europe, but it’s never explained what exactly they are going to do with it once these people have been forcibly smuggled across the borders. Are they going to be forcibly met with someone when they get there, and have the drugs removed, are they selling it on, how are people going to get high from this and therefore demand more of a sale. None of this is ever explained.

We see a scene earlier on when they give a small sample of the drug to one man and it appears he is getting some sort of a high from it, but the second he gets high he gets shot in the head. What the hell was the point of that! When I was watching the villains, half the time that is what I was shouting in my head “what the hell are you doing! what is the point of any of this!”

There is also a scene in the middle of the movie where Lucy has the opportunity to kill the main bad guy and she doesn’t do it. Why? You could have solved half of your problems if you had! The only reason she doesn’t kill him is we wouldn’t have had the final act of the film if she did.

The ending of this film is also really confusing. I still have no idea what the hell happened. I am not going to reveal the ending because I want to keep these reviews spoiler free, but lets just say that when I finally saw this thing to its closing credits I did actually say in the middle of the theatre “what the hell was that!”

Right, lets move on. Acting. Scarlett Johannson does play

Lucy pretty well for the first ten to fifteen minutes, but then it just goes all downhill from there. I know there is a line that says as she gets more access to her brain she starts losing what makes her human, but she could have put more life into this character. She just seems bored the entire time she is on screen. I wouldn’t mind so much except for the fact that we are forced to stay with her the majority of the time. I just didn’t enjoy her performance. Morgan Freeman does a pretty good job, as Morgan Freeman would, but he isn’t given much to do. In fact he also looks very disappointed half the time he is on the screen, it’s almost like he’s said to the director before he’s gone on, “are you sure you haven’t got anything else for me to do!”

Other than that the rest of the cast is ‘just there’ really. They don’t really do their jobs that well! The villain is forgettable! The side characters are also just there, they’re basically just cameos. There’s nothing really to talk about. No wonder the posters just highlight Scarlett Johannson and Morgan Freeman. They are the only people acting.

I did go to see this film in IMAX because it had been heavily advertised as the way to see this film and I feel ripped off. Yes some of the shots worked very well with the IMAX but I didn’t think I was getting anything better by doing so! I would have got just as much an interest with the effects and the sequences had I seen it on a regular screen. An IMAX performance is always the same, enjoyable, but I am saying its just not necessary. To anyone who hasn’t seen this film yet on the back of this review and you still want to see it, just get a regular ticket, it’s not worth it. While we are on the subject of the effects, some of them range from pretty good to downright ‘I have no idea what the hell I am looking at’.

Most of the special effects result around Lucy’s brain activity and it took me a while to realise what she was doing.

Lets talk action sequences. They’re are actually pretty good. This is definitely one of the positive points I will give to Lucy. The practical effects work well for when she’s using things like psychokinesis (at least I think that’s what it is) and the action is actually kept to enough of a distance in terms of the positioning of the camera so I can actually feel every movement, but this was definitely one point I did enjoy. The only action sequence I didn’t really like was the car chase in Paris. I know she is trying to get somewhere in a hurry, again I am not going to spoil the plot of this film too much, but there is no reason for the police to be chasing her, and what’s more the sequence is filmed with everything up way too close, even worse was half the cars being CGI, even Need for Speed got right that you should use actual cars for your car chase and that film was rubbish.

This film I would actually say is one of the most pretentiously shot films I have seen all year. They do tons of quasi-philosophical symbolism using footage from wildlife documentaries and it really gets on my nerves. It’s trying to pretend it’s smarter than it is. It makes a lot of references to the first Hominid being called Lucy. But they don’t really touch upon it, it’s just a brief mention at the beginning and a brief mention towards the end – what was the point of that!

The film also stops right in the middle of sequences, just a flash across the screen, what percentage of her brain she now has access to, which got even more annoying. Yes, I am not an idiot, I can tell that she is accessing more and more of her brain as time goes on, you kept hammering it in at the beginning. I thought that in the middle of this film that maybe this was meant to be something I turned off my brain and just enjoy it as a simple picture but the film constantly reminds you that you should keep your brain on and unfortunately it just highlights half the problems.

There are some positive points to this film, like, as I mentioned the action sequences and the fact that Morgan Freeman does a pretty good job, though he’s not given much to do and Paris is shot very well, but it’s just not enough to really ignore a lot of the negative points. I remember when Bennet the Sage for his online show reviewed Twighlight of the Cockroaches and he described the film as being more interesting than it is good and I think that sums up this film in a nutshell.

This review is probably a lot shorter because of the length of the film and the fact that i didn’t really have much to say on it, it didn’t really do anything for me. It tries a lot of these high concepts, but it doesn’t have the intelligence to back it up. Probably it’s length is one of the reasons I don’t hate it because I wasn’t forced to sit thru it too long. I really get the sense that people were trying with this film, but this needed another re-write. This should have not been the final product and it only gets worse the more I think about it.

I’m certain Lucy appeals to someone, I really am. I would say check it out as you’ll probably see something that I didn’t., but for me I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough. This is not how the brain works, this is not how humanity itself works and this is not how evolution works, and for a film that’s trying to report that it knows that! That’s a big sin. I would recommend it if you’re curious, but if you go by my review, I’d say, avoid it. You can spend your money and see a lot better films that are out right now.

Ok guys I hope you have enjoyed seeing one of the films that I have set for this week at the cinema, drop me a comment. I need to know what everyone else thinks to see whether I got it right or wrong. I’m very interested to see whether our opinions match.

I promised in this section I would tell you about the next film review, well I may have metiontion the next film was going to be the direct to DVD Justice League War well that was due to the fact I was meant to be going on holiday and it was the only way I was going to get a review out on time but due to Dr Buchan’s unfortunate injury we are not able to get out there so I have decided since the next film should be a cinema release to make the best of a bad situation (also the film is really difficult to get a copy of without Amazon digital or iTunes). At the request of Dr Buchan on 30 September I’ll be posting my review of the next film which is Pride

Oh and for everyone who was expecting Justice League war I’m sorry and I do intend to review all the DC animated movies that come out next year to make up for it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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“Guardians of the Galaxy”

This is the final of the Marvel movies coming out this year and to be fair this has been a very good year for Marvel movies, especially considering last year where all the films kind of felt like they were a filler for the upcoming Avengers Age of Ultron. The perspective I’m coming from watching this film is that I’m more a reader of DC comics than Marvel but I do dabble some of the time in Marvel and I will go to see pretty much all of the Marvel movies when they are released and I have seen all of the Marvel movies this year except for X Men Days of Future Past (which I do plan to see at some point) and they have been very decent. In fact I would even go as far to say that Captain America the Winter Soldier is probably still potentially in my favourite movies of the year list.

However, while I may not read a ton of Marvel I have recently started reading the Guardians of the Galaxy comic series, more specifically the comic series written by Abnett and Lanning which gave a similar iteration of this film and I am really in to this comic series. So I was extra hyped up to see a movie involving these characters.

This comic series was really a glorious sci-fi epic and I have already pre-ordered the second volume which will be coming out in December of this year in graphic novel form. But obviously I’m not here to review a comic I’m here to review a film and this film did a pretty decent job of adapting the comic.

I will start with the cast although there isn’t really much to go into with this cast. I suppose the cast wasn’t bad they just didn’t really do much per se, especially in terms of the overall plot and they don’t relate too much back to the comics. There are two exceptions to this. Majorly being Michael Rooker of Walking Dead fame playing Yondu who delivers a pretty decent performance and Karen Gillan who famously played Amy Pond in Dr Who as Nibular who does fantastic work in this role playing an excellent one single minded villain. But with some conflict motivation seriously I still can’t believe it’s her, the make-up effects are brilliant and she really plays a different sort of character to her usual roles.

But in this sort of movie you only really want to talk about the heroes and the villains when it comes to the cast because if you don’t get them right you then your movie is really going to suffer. In this incarnation of Guardians of the Galaxy we have Peter Quill AKA Star Lord played by Chris Pratt, Gamora played by Zoe Saldana, Drax played by Dave Batista, of professional wrestling fame, Groot played by Vin Diesel and Rocket played by Bradley Cooper, of Hangover fame. When I first heard the casting it was a bit of a worry because most of these guys have not been in films that I have enjoyed but I genuinely enjoyed this cast. They really got into their characters and gave pretty decent performances. I will say with the exception of Dave Bastista playing Drax. He is not bad at playing Drax per se but I couldn’t switch off my head that I was just watching the same guy who power bombed John Cena at wrestlemaina.

Rocket is my favourite character from the comics and in the film it is no different. Bradley Cooper really, really brings this character to life and to be honest with you after reading the comic I definitely imagined someone like Bradley Cooper playing this character. Admittedly I’m still not really a fan of his other films but I will definitely insist that he comes back to play this character in future sequels and to be honest with you I also really got a kick out of Chris Pratt playing Star Lord. He really can play all of these sorts of emotional, heroic and comedic moments to a tee and considering he has to carry most of the film that is saying a lot. As for the comparison of the characters to the comic, the personalities are intact although there are a few slight changes to the comic origin. In the comics, Peter Quill forms the Guardians to be a proactive team to defend the galaxy and most importantly the Nova corps. In the film the group are essentially outlaws and bounty hunters that are forced together by circumstances and whilst I wasn’t as keen on the new origin as I was on the comic origin I think it does pretty well for a general movie going audience and it was still at least in the spirit of the original characters so I don’t mind this change too much. Other than that personalities remain intact so I’m dead happy with these characterisations.

The character that gives some of the biggest changes which isn’t that big is the villain Ronan the Accuser played by Lee Pace. In the comics he wasn’t too much of the overall villain which is definitely a change that has been made for the movie. The comics had him more down as a sort of enforcer, neither good nor bad but would potentially be a threat if he decided he wanted you or anyone else dead. The film definitely goes more towards a straight villain and it’s not bad just different, still getting in the spirit of the original and is an adaptation that kind of makes sense. Also I can’t get over the bad ass design he has been given to this film. Kudos to the make-up department on that one!

Which brings me to the action sequences and visual effects. Now while this film was available in 3D due to scheduling circumstances I wasn’t able to go and see it in 3D so I had to settle for a regular performance but this definitely didn’t hinder my enjoyment. Most of the effects definitely didn’t feel like they were made for 3D, only being enhanced by the 3D with one or two exceptions mind you but this has definitely got some brilliant action sequences, though not as good as the action sequences in my favourite Marvel film, being Avengers Assemble but they are definitely there and some of the best sci-fi action I’ve seen in ages which will probably make this on a lot of peoples top ten favourite films lists just on the action alone. You could really tell from the people in the theatre that they really liked how some of the sequences played out. I will say, however, a couple of the sequences do suffer from typical superhero action movie fight scene troubles, mainly being that the camera was too close so I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on, probably in an attempt to cover up the wire work.

However I will say when the fight scenes are good they are really good and like most Marvel films you will feel every action that takes place on screen. But on the same note visually this film is gorgeous. Its visual design gives the real feeling that you are in space and while the designs reflected some aspects of the comic very well though I did feel that some of the plants looked a bit too Utopian for a Guardians of the Galaxy story. My favourite effect was definitely the crew piloting into Knowhere which is an effect that was translated so well to the comics. The only other major effects to speak about were the CGI put in place to bring to life Groot and Rocket and while you could sort of tell they were computer effects I did manage to turn off my brain a lot and not just see a computer effect but see these characters. I’m hoping I will be able to do the same thing with the Ninja Turtle film which will be getting reviewed in October. You can really see that Vin Diesel put a lot of effort into his motion capture for the Groot character. I don’t know whether he did more of the actual physical fight effects or not so I can’t really comment on that one but the character does move without looking like he’s got a stick stuck up his arse like some really bad CG characters have looked in the past.

As for the plot itself I had a blast with it. This film got a really nice balance of action, comedy and some serious drama. I will say this film has hilarious moment after hilarious moment. In the cinema I was in there were laughs going almost every minute and it is just generally an all round fun film to watch and that is a lot considering how superhero films have kind of gone these days. I’m not saying I disliked films like The Dark Knight for going completely serious but it’s nice to see a superhero film that is just absolutely fun without insulting the audience’s intelligence. So my complete respect to Writer and Director James Gunn. He really delivered this plot to us in a way that will be appeasing to both comic fans and to the general movie audience which definitely seemed to be the impression I got from the general audience coming out of the cinema with me.

Do I have any negatives? I do have a couple. As I said Dave Batista playing the role of Drax can vary in his acting ability, although mind you considering some acting performances done by wrestlers in previous films this year this is actually pretty damn well good. I’m looking at you Dwayne Johnson in Hercules. I also will say Ronan’s lines can come across as quite a hammy performance at times. But I suppose it adds a bit to the fun level. I would also say for a series with a cast as large as Guardians of the Galaxy not as many characters were used that could have been used. I get characters like Mantis, Quasar and Adam Warlock not showing up in this film. That makes sense, they are probably there for future sequels as well as some of the other villain choices you could have for a future sequel. Ronan probably was a good idea for the first film. But I think the ultra missed opportunity was not including Cosmo. He barely gets a cameo in a later segment where the Guardians are trying to drop off the artefact that drives the plot to a character called the Collector. The problem is this cameo will only make sense if you have read the comics and I would have quite liked to have seen more of it. Maybe he will turn up in the next film and I would be dead glad for that but who wouldn’t want to see a super intelligent dog that was sent into space by Russians that works as a liaison for the Guardians to the Nova corps and practically runs knowhere!

If I can take a moment to get away from the negativity I will say my favourite scene in the movie was definitely the scene which introduced Thanos to the movie and this character is brilliant. We are finally getting more of a look into him since he was teased in the closing credits of Avengers Assemble. His design is great the scene is paced perfectly. The characterisation is done well and I am really looking forward to this character turning up in Avengers Age of Ultron. I also would like to give praise to the great soundtrack as well which with a couple of songs gave a great mix of songs from the 70’s and 80’s

I think it’s time I summed up. Overall this movie was really good. I genuinely had a great time watching it and while it didn’t reflect the comic perfectly it didn’t need to reflect the comic perfectly. There were a few missed opportunities but I think the sequels will make up for it and when I eventually get round to reviewing them they will probably play a part in my opinion. Is this one of my favourite films of the year? Maybe. A lot of people have said that this was better than avengers assemble but I will disagree but that was a tough act to beat. I may put it in my top ten films of the year, which will be published at the end of this year or the beginning of next year (I haven’t fully decided on a schedule at that time yet) but I’m not even sure if this is my favourite Marvel film of the year. I think it about on a par with Captain America the Winter Soldier but I’ll reflect on it and probably give you an update later on that.

My final thoughts are definite. This one is definitely one to check out if nothing else get a DVD rental of it. Hell go ahead and buy it I would go that far recommending it. Though I will say get it in Blu-Ray if you can. This film deserves to be visually marvelled (no pun intended).

Well Film Society that’s another one down. Was I right in saying that this was a great way for Marvel to end its cinematic year or did I get it completely wrong? Drop us a comment I would love to hear from any opinions, whether it’s confirming my previous thoughts or telling me that I’m an idiot and everyone hated this film. I’m open to any comment.

Now this would normally be the time I would tell you what the next film is going to be and when it is going to be online, however, I did promise this was a double feature so if you want to find out, check out my Lucy review. Go on, it’s online now!

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

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SIN CITY 2:
A Dame to Kill For

Now I came into this movie having watched the previous Sin City movie the week before and I wasn’t that much of a fan of it. Yes as much as I praise the comics Batman Year 1 and the Dark Knight Returns I’m not that much of a fan of Frank Miller’s writing style and that movie did nothing to change my opinion. So when I went in to the cinema to see this one I was coming from the perspective of someone who didn’t really enjoy the first one. Though there were points I enjoyed in the first one and I was hoping it would improve upon the issues I had. While I’m happy to say it definitely did improve on a few levels and I do actually prefer this film to its predecessor.

For starters this film once again does have an excellent visual style. The Directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller who co-directed this film definitely put a lot of effort into making the comic come to life. Some of the shots looked like exact duplicates of panels from the comic, however, this also comes with the same issue I saw in the first film which was that sometimes the shots feel very much static and more like a motion comic rather than an actual film and anyone who knows me knows I’m not much of a fan of motion comics so this style did slightly rub me the wrong way but I definitely could see past it and while I didn’t mind the black and white visuals, especially given the fact there wasn’t too much colour contrast such as the yellow guy from the first film which really stuck out of place without any sort of explanation for why he looked like that, however, what also annoyed me was the fact I saw the film in 3D which definitely I would recommend who hadn’t seen the film yet to go and see it in 3D, this film definitely is worth the extra price for the 3D conversion, especially considering half the shots and effects aren’t made exactly for the 3D and I don’t think too many shots are going to look weird when translated to DVD, for example, the previous Judge Dredd movie from a couple of years ago.

The plot is relatively similar to the first film. Definitely taking the whole three stories that are sort of meant to slice together in one movie just following different characters which in the first film I wasn’t a fan of because I felt they didn’t give enough time to learn about the characters before we were suddenly shifted to a new one. It was essentially a case of “Hi nice to see ya, goodbye, here’s some new people”. This time the stories definitely tied together a lot better especially the Jonny and Nancy stories which both had the Senator Roark character as a binding feature and showed the progression very well of that character.

The major flaw in the plot for me was definitely the Dwight character’s plot. It wasn’t that bad per se but it definitely showed more of what makes Frank Miller’s stories a bit questionable at best and because Roark and none of the other characters played a role nor could any of the other characters that tie together the plot throughout the entire story were in it, it felt very out of place and like it should have been its own movie which further reflected the problems I had with the first film.

My favourite character overall was definitely Jonny who definitely seemed like he was a different character to any of the others that were portrayed in the first film though not in a way that he stuck out so much that you thought he didn’t belong in the movie. Because of the fact that his motivations were very clear he simply wants to beat Roark who also is a wonderful bad guy and their connection was played out very well in their story. It also helped the fact that he has been played in this film by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who is fast becoming one of my favourite actors. He is seriously outdoing himself in every role he’s in. I cannot wait to see this guy in more films. He hasn’t got much else coming out this year but I’m hoping that next year he will be used even more, making a name for himself and its roles like this which are definitely doing it.

I also would like to say that one of my big surprises in this film was Jessica Alba’s acting. I am not a Jessica Alba fan, I don’t think she can really deliver a good performance but she actually does pretty well in this role. I am really surprised by this, especially considering she had such little personality in the first film. Although I would say she doesn’t really improve or has learnt much from the first film her character had at least has a very clear motivation in this film and whilst it is very similar to Jonny’s character, she has a clear goal in place, it is reflecting what happened at the end of the first film and it is a very believable performance.

As I mentioned before another one of the great highlights is also Powers Boothe playing Senator Roark. This character was not given that much time in the first film, in fact it was basically a brief cameo in it or at least might as well have been for all the good it did but in this film you feel his presence. He is corrupt and almost feels like he is the City itself. He is definitely one of the actors that makes this movie. So from the sounds of it so far you are thinking hey I really like this movie. Well no, I’m sad to say this film did not win me over to the Sin City franchise. It definitely did a better job than its first film, that’s a definite but I’m still not fan of this style of Frank Miller’s writing. He’s a good writer, he has written some great comics in the 80s and 90s but he just can’t be seen to do it now and while this film may be better than a lot of his other recent works it’s not by much. He still suffers from his biggest issue, Frank can’t write women. In the majority of his work every woman on screen is either a prostitute, a stripper or sexualised in some fashion and in this film it’s no different. I know that is a common criticism of Miller’s writing but I can’t exactly let it pass. The only other female character in this movie was a waitress in a diner and you have no idea how weird it was in this film to finally see a normal woman on screen. In my head there was basically a fanfare going off.

The plot also has some other issues, for example, Micky Rourke once again returns to play Marv but I have no idea why he’s here! For starters his character was killed in his storyline in the first film. There is no explanation for why he’s back and alive. At least Bruce Willis returning in this film makes sense, he’s a ghost that’s meant to also be working as a spirit guide, however, this still makes no sense. It’s especially dumbfounding when you realise he plays very little of a role in the overall plot. Oh sure he’s virtually there in every story giving aid to the characters albeit a sort of a gun for hire but he doesn’t really contribute much. If he wasn’t really going to play that much of a role what was the point of bringing him back? I suspect it’s probably because Micky Rourke is such a now heavily accredited actor, especially wining several awards for his film The Wrestler but this really bothered me, especially considering the Marv character was fairly decent in the first film. The visuals also do rub me in the wrong way in certain scenes. Frank Miller’s art style has always been something I’ve never been that much of a fan of and I especially don’t think it translates that well into live action. It’s not as bad as the first film and I didn’t really notice it too bad except for later parts of Nancy’s design and Marv’s overall design throughout the film but what are you going to do, it’s there and it’s not incredibly distracting I just think it looked pretty ugly on paper and it doesn’t look any less ugly in live action.

Also, the city still feels very lifeless there’s no-one really on the street, no real landmarks, once again this was much more of a problem although it was much worse of a problem in the first film and to be fair we do get a lot more locations in this film, making it feel much more like an actual city. But it’s also really not doing much for me.

I think all the problems seemed to come to a head during the Dwight storyline. Most of what I previously mentioned is really exacerbated in this one and the whole aspect of all the characters feeling very mean spirited and it is so exacerbated here it is unbelievable. With this story character though we did have a re-casting. In the original film Dwight was played by Clive Owen. In this film he is played by Josh Brolin who may be a better choice for this sort of film but I was still not convinced. He had better motivations than the previous movie but it is still not really there. I’m not a big fan of this character and all the characters in that storyline really did rub me up the wrong way. It is also where the over-sexualisation of the female characters really played the biggest part, especially the character Ava played by Eva Green. I really hope she got paid a lot for this movie because she was essentially naked for most of the time she is on camera. I really felt like one of the major reasons this film got a rating of 18 was just down to this alone.

I also must be honest the monologue gets on my nerves so much. The first rule of film is show don’t tell. I know this is supposed to be a noir but noir films at least the monologues moved the plot along and are meant to just fill in the gaps on things we didn’t see. This one seems to monologue just about anything and definitely an aspect that was not improved from the first film. The Dwight storyline definitely was where this was most present. Come to think of it I definitely think I am bashing that plotline a lot more than the other two. Maybe that’s the reason I am probably not going to put this in my favourite films of the year.

So overall what did I think of this film? Well I definitely preferred it to the first one but I didn’t think this was a particularly good movie and it definitely is not convincing me to go back to buying Frank Miller comics or even going in to the Sin City franchise. I will say I definitely came out of this film feeling a lot better than the previous one. Mainly because it is mercifully a lot shorter than the first one and this is definitely one of the films that makes me think 3D is worth going with. Though it still only manages to be a point above the other one and I still think there have been better films that have come out this year.

If you enjoyed the first film you will definitely get a kick out of this one. If you weren’t so much of a fan I would still recommend having a go at this one as well. You will definitely get a lot more out of this film than you did the first one. Although if you haven’t seen either film I would still recommend going for the first one first as there are a lot of plot elements in this one that aren’t that well explained that carry on from the first film.

Overall, fairly decent. Surprised me because I was expecting to hate it.

Well that’s one review down for you guys. Come back on 17th September where we have a double feature. I will be reviewing both Guardians of the Galaxy and the much anticipated Lucy.

Oh and tell me what you think of the film in the comment section what’s your opinion we are a film society after all.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

Guardians of the Galaxy Full Trailer Official:

Lucy Official International Trailer #1 (2014)

 

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